Get 1 Week or 1 Month of Free Hotel Nights With These Limited Time Credit Card Offers

There are currently four Hilton HHonors cards in circulation. Two of these cards are no fee, and two are with a fee. AMEX issues two and Citi issues two.

The Citi Hilton Reserve (annual fee) has not changed it’s bonus in forever–it’s quite good, at two weekend night certificates at any Hilton worldwide. The caveat is that they can only be used on the weekend which makes them a bit restrictive. But, many people have vacations that happen over the weekend so if you’re creative you can get a great use out of them.

Three of these cards have limited time offers and are the historic highs for each product. By limited I mean two of them are expiring tomorrow. And remember with AMEX these are once in a lifetime so get them while they’re at their highest.

You’ll notice that three of these four products will earn more than 1 point per dollar. Both AMEX and the Citi Reserve product earn a minimum of 3 points per dollar spent, so after hitting the minimum spend, you’ll have more than just the sign up bonus. You can see that in the sub-totals column.

If you opened all these cards, you’d have 90 days from approval to spend… With the exception of the Reserve card, which you’ll have 120 days to reach the spend requirement.

That’s a lot of spend, but it’s also a lot of nights.

Order of Applications

If you can reach the spend in 90 – 120 days…

Day 1:

AMEX Surpass

AMEX HHonors – No fee

Freeze Experian – Citi often times pull’s multiple credit bureaus. Then apply for the Citi HHonors – No fee as this is a limited time offer.

Day 9/10:

Citi requires 9 days from one application (denials are included) before you can apply for another

Your Experian will still be frozen – Apply for the Citi Reserve

If you cannot reach the spend in 90 – 120 days:

Go for the first three cards and then after that, apply for the Citi Reserve as that offer is always the same.

How many nights can you get?

Now that we got the churning stuff out of the way, what does 272,000 HHonors points and 2 free weekend nights get me?

HHonors has an inflated award chart, so their top tier property will be about 95,000 points; whereas Hyatt’s would be 30,000.

For reference, here’s Hilton’s chart:

The section in red is where you want to look–notice the variability.

Here’s my recommendation: spend $3,000 extra on any of the cards except the Citi HHonors – No fee card. $3,000*3 points = 9,000 points. 272,000 + 9,000 = 281,000. This would get you four nights at a 70,000 point per night property.

Why 70,000 for 4 nights and not almost 3 nights for 285,000 points at a 95,000 point per night?

Because…

Hilton also gives members a 5th night free on 4 nights booking.

So if you went above 70,000 points you’d get 3 nights and not unlock that free, 5th night.

So far you have 5 free nights. AND Two weekend Reserve nights. That’s seven free nights.

Of course you could always go at lower level properties, but if you want to get aspirational that’s a pretty sweet deal.

Best properties?

Unfortunately Hilton does not have a category list (because it changes so often) of their properties. Here are some resources (most are not updated) that are a good jumping off point: